Just $57,725 Will Buy You an Insane, 360-hp 2012 Audi TT RS

It’s astonishing that Audi and Porsche are, on a corporate level, parts of the same entity. When ordering a 911, shoppers can specify that the center tunnel—not the dash, mind you, but the trim on top of the transmission tunnel—be painted black. It costs more than $1100. So it’s a bit of a shock, then, […]

It’s astonishing that Audi and Porsche are, on a corporate level, parts of the same entity. When ordering a 911, shoppers can specify that the center tunnel—not the dash, mind you, but the trim on top of the transmission tunnel—be painted black. It costs more than $1100. So it’s a bit of a shock, then, that Audi has just priced the 360-hp TT RS at a mere $57,725.

While that’s more than twice the cost of the Volkswagen GTI on which the TT RS is loosely based, it represents a fantastic value for car that offers such performance—and it’s several thousand dollars cheaper than the rough estimate of $60,000–$65,000 that Audi had given us in the past. The TT RS does, after all, include the company’s maniacal turbocharged five-cylinder engine, with the requisite warble at low speeds and erogenous bleating at full throttle.

Equipped with a dual-clutch automatic and standard launch control, we were able to harness the violence of a full-power takeoff and hit 60 from a standstill in a paltry 3.6 seconds. Audi will offer only the six-speed manual (which does not include launch control) in the States; Audi estimates a TT RS so equipped will hit 60 mph in 4.1 seconds.

For some context, the 320-hp Porsche Cayman S starts at $63,050, while the newly introduced 302-hp Mercedes-Benz SLK350 will sting you for $55,675; at least the latter boasts a folding metal roof.

The TT RS is the first RS model offered in the U.S. since the RS4 based on the last-gen A4 was discontinued several years ago. Audi typically rolls out RS versions of cars at the end of their life cycles, and in the case of the TT RS we can confidently say the company saved the best for last.